Personal Productivity For Teams

For years there has been a focus on productivity at a personal level. Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits for Highly Effective People was for many the starting point, but real momentum was gained when the business and technology communities jumped on board David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD).

The fact that GTD is a highly flexible methodology has lead to it’s wide spread adoption by individuals. A plethora of PC, Mac, smartphone, tablet and web based apps have emerged to support GTD implementation by individuals, in addition to a range of paper based “minimalist” systems.

The elephant in the room has always been that the various implementations of GTD and other personal productivity approaches have been individualistic. One person might have an incredible tracking of their own next actions, and they might even diligently track waiting for actions from others. In other words, the various apps and approaches are all about the personal productivity of the individuals using them.

The benefits generally stop there. Few, if any, of the current systems track actions from one individual to another, and even fewer map those together into a consistent and persistent workflow within the team or organisation. None appear to have any ability for an organisation to customise its various workflows to its business processes.

Few, if any, of the current systems track actions from one individual to another, and even fewer map those together into a consistent and persistent workflow within the team or organisation.

Many organisations have invested a lot into business process reengineering to optimise their core processes. They have invested significantly into licensing and customising enterprise software to manage discrete process activities such as invoicing and accounts receivable.

Comparatively little thought has been put into the workflow of the end-to-end process that includes many tasks completed outside those systems. This is despite the fact that most breakdowns in business processes occur not within the discrete process elements, but within handoffs (or transitions) between process elements, particularly when those handoffs occur between different individuals in the team.

teamfocus was created with the vision of empowering companies to setup workflows that track the various business processes of the company from start to finish. Importantly, the various handoffs in the workflows are tracked from one individual to the next, ensuring that transitions between individuals are managed smoothly.

Any GTD system needs a solid process of review to keep track of what needs to be done, and importantly who needs to do it. This is all the more important in the team environment. A key feature of teamfocus is the customised reporting or metrics that allow individuals to check what they need to do and what’s coming towards them from someone else. Individuals can track the status of items they’re waiting for others to complete, and managers can identify any bottlenecks in the workflow.

Importantly, teamfocus workflows are not set in stone. When bottlenecks are identified the cause might be individual performance, workflow design or evolution in business process. Where the bottlenecks are due to design or change, the teamfocus workflow can change with the business.

teamfocus workflows are not set in stone. Companies should consider the fact that the various individual personal productivity systems being used in their organisation would be significantly more powerful if they were tied together by a consistent and persistent workflow that maps to the business processes.